This is How it Works
by The Leaf 180
Summary: And in the end, Celty is alone. She had nothing then, and she has nothing now, and everything is cohesive and her life is empty once more. She knew this day would come. Deep down in her dead heart she always knew that nothing would last forever. It is now, when she has lost everything that was never really hers to have, that she believes it. Set in the inevitable future.


**So we all know, as much as we try to deny it, that (someday) Shizuo and Izaya and Shinra and everyone she's ever come to know will die, and Celty will be devastated. This is a glimpse at how she'll feel when the day comes for her to move on from the life she's come to love.**

**The song is on the Radio by Regina Spektor**

* * *

_This is how it works, it feels a little worse_

She tries to pretend her hands are not shaking and shoulders are still and she's fine. Perfectly fine because she's had nothing before and she's dealt with it. She'll find her way again. She'll find another after all. Her dead heart is empty and broken and she doesn't want much of anything anymore exept his touch, but she will never have it.

She's doomed to this eternal fortitude and she had better get used to it, because that's all there is and all there ever will be. No use in falling in love. She's known that for the longest time.

This is how it works, she's alone and then there's something akin to happiness and then there's nothing again. So how could she have been so stupid? She knew it would end like this. Deep down in her dead heart she knew that nothing would last forever. Except for her that is, her and her sorrow along with the earth and sky and nothing else at all.

_That solo's really long, but it's a pretty song_

She was a fool to let herself get so comfortable in this life. She's a fool to be so attached. And now it's gone and she'll never get it back. She weeps for him, but there are no tears and it is only the echoes in her heart.

Her chest constricting, cloying invisible tendrils snaking around her side and taking it all away, taking and taking…. She has nothing left to give. She is nothing now.

_This is how it works. You're young until you're not_

Shizuo is gone, has been for the past twenty or so years. It was his anger that had killed him, not Izaya. He had run himself dry, a heart attack was sudden and although they all should have seen it coming…

No one was prepared. And no one was there for him. And he slipped through her fingers and she could do nothing about it. Gone. They told him so many times, he thought he was invincible and now he's just dead.

_You try until you can't, you can until you try_

Izaya had been diagnosed with multiple personality and mental disorders. They had to take him away kicking and screaming for his humans and all she could do was watch. She's never understood him. That's why Shizuo was her friend and Izaya was Shinra's.

She visits him sometimes. Never stays long, some days are better than others. He's crumbling and locked inside his own world. He's falling into insanity, a far cry from his former glory. She can do nothing for him. He's a lost cause.

Laughing at everything and nothing aside from his own misery, but now, Celty can understand.

_You laugh until you cry, you cry until you laugh_

Shinra was all she had left; she clung to him, even throughout his failing health and piling bills. She had stayed by his side, eternally young and cursed to bear her grief forevermore. Someone like Shinra would not leave her. Death could not steal him, she had lied to herself.

And in the end, Celty is alone. She had nothing then, and she has nothing now, and everything is cohesive and her life is empty once more.

_And we were on our knees, praying that disease would leave the ones we love, and never come again_

"Please," she would beg if she had a voice, "Please take me back." She'll do everything and anything, but nothing will give it all back. Now she's alone with her and her horse and everything's come full circle. It's all gone, but now that she thinks about it, she had nothing to begin with. She had nothing then and nothing now and why bother trying?

_And everyone must breathe, until their dying breath_

She'll never find another. She'll just keep living and maybe someday she'll forget. Forget a man with super-human strength and a heart of gold that no one ever saw. Forget a man with a god-complex, now fading from reality like he had never really lived and maybe that's better for both of them that way.

Forget a man whom she thought- no, she knew she loved and she knew she would die for, except she can't and that kills her. Figuratively of course. When she finds a way to end it she will.

_You hope it won't get harmed, but even if it does you'll just do it all again_

Shinra, with his jocular laugh and his contagious smile that she can't mimic, but feels his sunshine in her soul and it warms her to her tips. He's cold and dead and six feet under and it's tearing her apart.

It was him_. _It was always him. Everything she did and everything she is was for him. She's living for him, but she'll be living no matter what, even if she's dead inside, and shattered and broken and missing. She hates this, she hates this loneliness, but it's all that she has left.

A broken heart and a broken mind and broken everything.

Nothing and everything is keeping her here in this house. Nothing and everything is keeping her here on this couch that they had shared so many times, nothing and everything is keeping her here with her memories but she can't seem to pry herself away. She had a life once, she had a future too. But now everything is blurry and she doesn't know what she wants.

But, she's cursed with eternal life until and she's loved and lost before. She's managed before and she'll manage again now, somehow. She'll flee the city with nothing but her name and her horse and leave everything behind. It means nothing to her. The only people she ever knew and loved are six-feet under.

Now she knows that her and Izaya are not at all alike and not at all different, they are dead inside. They are living (somewhat). But he will die too. They all do in the end.

And this is how it works, and she's never been one to question fate until now. She's always been the one to know that this was how things were and now that it has all come crashing down around her, she won't believe it.

She's nothing but a body without a soul, a heart with no true meaning and not much of anything besides that. She's an alien to this world and should know better to fall in love and try to live and be normal. Because if anything, she's far from that…

And the cycle runs full circle. And she's on her feet and not quite ready to start her life again, but she has no choice. There was never a choice for her. She didn't choose any of this.

And she knows that in a few centuries or so, she'll be in the same spot feeling the same feelings and thinking the same thoughts all over again. She doesn't know if she can do it all again. It's all she has though. Tradition and nothing else. It's all she is and she'll stay until she can find something else to live for.

And that is how it was, and always will be.


End file.
